Riyadh’s international airport has suspended operations after a missile attack injured dozens of people on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said on X that operations at the King Khalid International Airport in the capital were temporarily halted while it assessed the damage caused by the strike, which “resulted in a number of injuries”.
The attack is the third on the airport this week. Four people, including a Saudi Arabian pilot, were killed and several others injured on Thursday in a barrage for which Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement claimed responsibility.
The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for Saturday’s attack. In recent days the group has targeted airports in Riyadh, Abha, Jizan and Najran in the kingdom’s south-west near the Yemeni border, after announcing a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia in July.
King Khalid airport has urged passengers to contact their airlines before trying to travel, while the embassies of the US, Canada, Germany and Ireland have advised their citizens to avoid the airport. Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry told citizens abroad who were affected by the flight cancellations or delays to contact the kingdom’s missions for assistance.
A western diplomat told the FT that Terminal 3 of the airport was hit and medical evacuations were taking place.
A nearby hospital took in around 50 injured people — some of them in critical condition — a person familiar with the matter said. Riyadh’s big hospitals have activated their disaster code, the person added.
Flightradar24, a flight-tracking website, showed all flights to Riyadh had either been diverted or cancelled after the incident on Saturday. The final flight to depart was at 1.39pm local time, according to Flightradar24, while the last landing was at 2.05pm. Data group Cirium said 141 flights had been due to depart at or after that time.
Following the attack, flights over or near Riyadh were diverted, though the rest of the country’s airspace remained open. Kuwait Airways said its flights to Riyadh were cancelled “due to the closure of the airport resulting from the security situation”.
Saudi Arabia is preparing to host significant events, including the World Petroleum Council Energy Congress, which begins on Sunday.
The kingdom’s flagship conference, the Future Investment Initiative, is also scheduled for this month. It typically attracts top executives from around the world. Saudi Arabian officials said these events would still take place.
Asked whether the US would join Saudi Arabian air strikes against the Houthis, President Donald Trump said on Saturday: “We’re going to look at it. We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.”
Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 in an attempt to restore the internationally recognised government. The conflict reignited after a truce between the kingdom and the Iran-backed rebels collapsed this summer.
The rebels mounted a lightning advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast last month to tighten their grip on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical international waterway.
Mohammed Saeed Al Jaber, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Yemen, said on Friday that government forces had pushed the Houthis out of Bab al-Mandeb. But fighting continues on multiple front lines along the Red Sea coast and Yemen’s south-western provinces.